China’s Broadcast of ‘V for Vendetta’ Stuns Viewers

Associated Press/Richard Drew, File – FILE – In this Oct. 21, 2011 file photo, masks, including “V for Vendetta,” left, are displayed at a Ricky’s Halloween store in New York. Television audiences across China watched an anarchist antihero rebel against a totalitarian government and persuade the people to rule themselves. Soon the Internet was crackling with quotes of “V for Vendetta’s” famous line: “People should not be afraid of their governments. Governments should be afraid of their people.” The airing of the movie Friday night, Dec. 14, 2012 on China Central Television stunned viewers and raised hopes that China is loosening censorship. (AP Photo/Richard Drew, File)

Maybe the Communist regime in Beijing is allowing the airing of “V for Vendetta” because they’re in cahoots with Obama and the Occupiers—meaning: they want the occupiers to “win.” The Chicoms do hold most of our debt now. We owe them, so to speak.

BEIJING (AP) — Television audiences across China watched an anarchist antihero rebel against a totalitarian government and persuade the people to rule themselves. Soon the Internet was crackling with quotes of “V for Vendetta’s” famous line: “People should not be afraid of their governments. Governments should be afraid of their people.”

The airing of the movie Friday night on China Central Television stunned viewers and raised hopes that China is loosening censorship.

“V for Vendetta” never appeared in Chinese theaters, but it is unclear whether it was ever banned. An article on the Communist Party’s People’s Daily website says it was previously prohibited from broadcast, but the spokesman for the agency that approves movies said he was not aware of any ban.

Some commentators and bloggers think the broadcast could be CCTV producers pushing the envelope of censorship, or another sign that the ruling Communist Party’s newly installed leader, Xi Jinping, is serious about reform.

“Oh God, CCTV unexpectedly put out ‘V for Vendetta.’ I had always believed that film was banned in China!” media commentator Shen Chen wrote on the popular Twitter-like Sina Weibo service, where he has over 350,000 followers.

Zhang Ming, a supervisor at a real estate company, asked on Weibo: “For the first time CCTV-6 aired ‘V for Vendetta,’ what to think, is the reform being deepened?”